October 17, 2017
Te Puea refines homeless project
Mangere’s Te Puea Marae has signed agreements with other social agencies as it attempts to develop new ways to tackle the needs of homeless Maori and Pasifika whanau.
Marae chair Hurimoana Dennis says the marae’s winter mission to house the homeless has grown wider.
Other agencies are keen to work with the marae so they can get closer to their target groups and the marae is able to more easily direct people to areas like skills training.
He says many people are set on the path to homelessness by negative interactions with bureaucracy but the marae can turn that round by changing the cultural dynamic.
"The bureaucracy continues to do what it can do but it just lacks a lot of leadership. There’s not a lot of innovative or lateral thinking about how to resolve or problem solve because some of them aren’t too hard to resolve. People just need a bit of advocacy, a bit of support. Some families, we’ve just given them the advice and they have been able to click back to where they were and get on with their lives, " Mr Dennis says.
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